Welcome to the latest installment of the Bocas Book Bulletin, a monthly roundup of Caribbean literary news, curated by the Bocas Lit Fest, Trinidad and Tobago’s annual literary festival, and published in the Sunday Express.
New Releases
Deep Water (Self-Published), a debut collection of poems by Trinidadian musician and writer Kobie Alleyne, delves into themes of self-discovery and transformation, utilizing extended aqueous metaphors. The book is sectioned into five movements, Low Tide, Rising Tide, High Tide, Storm Surge, and Open Water, each representative of an individual’s journey through the vicissitudes of life. While specific in their contexts, the poems of Deep Water retain a collective appeal for anyone who has endured grief, suffered hardships, and emerged victorious through life’s unpredictable trials and torments. Spiritual rootedness also crucially factors into the collection’s trajectory.
Triage (Graywolf Press/ Allen Lane) by Claudia Rankine, the newest work from the critically lauded Jamaican-American poet and essayist, is a composite publication melding the genres of memoir, literary criticism, biography, and lyric essay. Triage explores the frayed relationship between two former friends, now marked by decades of silence, while paralleling their ruptured bond to the ever-unravelling state of the world around them. A commentary on modern cultural life and its dissolution, as well as a contemplation on the boundaries and borders of intense human kinships, the book represents both Rankine’s virtuosity and technical skill.
Bless Me, Papi (Curbstone Books / Northwestern University Press) by Dominican-American poet and memoirist Ayendy Bonifacio is the author’s debut work of young adult fiction. In Bless Me, Papi, a first-person narrator, thirteen-year-old Domingo José Sepulveda Jr., receives communiques from his deceased father in the form of a pigeon and a ghost. As Domingo pursues these otherworldly apparitions, accompanied by his friend and cousin, further developments tilt his world deeper into the surreal and spectral. Bonifacio’s coming-of-age narrative encompasses grief and mourning, juxtaposing it with daily violence and unbreakable teenage bonds.
You Are a Wonder of the Universe (Royards Publishing Company) by Trinidadian attorney and artist Judy K. Matthews is a guide to all those on the path to enlightenment and heightened creative purpose. Subtitled “Why The Heck Are You Dangling Off The Edge?”, Matthews’ book seeks to reinvest readers with their own power, thus enabling a clearer sense of self and commitment to holistic overall growth. Written in relatable prose, You Are a Wonder of the Universe draws deeply on the author’s own personal experiences, and includes practical exercises for activation, accountability, and upward development.
Is Anybody Out There? by Michael ‘Jai’ Kernahan is a fictionalized account of the author’s time as part of the National Union of Freedom Fighters (NUFF), the T&T anti-government group active in the aftermath of the 1970 Black Power Revolution. Subtitled “The true story of the Guerrilla war by the National United Freedom Fighters 1970-1975, Part I”, the book renders details of an era in local history and politics that remain unknown to large sections of the younger population. Kernahan, who was himself shot and captured during his tenure at NUFF, writes in compelling detail.
Bocas Siparia comes to Iere High School
“All Together Now” remains the focus of this year’s Bocas Siparia festival, on Saturday 26 September at Iere High School, Siparia. Bocas Siparia 2026, the third in a series of four one-day community literary and cultural festivals across Trinidad and Tobago, is presented by Methanex Trinidad.
The program features the return of the popular Objects of Memory showcase, held in partnership with the National Museum and Art Gallery, launched at the Bocas Lit Fest in May this year. Six T&T writers – Ryan Bachoo, Hadassah K. Williams, Vishnu Gosine, Barbara Lalla, Randy Ablack, Jamie Philbert – will present their commissioned, pre-written creative responses to six discrete objects housed in the National Museum and Art Gallery’s permanent collection. The display of these objects in-person at the festival will add a visual, textural component to the six writers’ performances.
Paying tribute to legendary departed writers will be a particular focus of Bocas Siparia’s programming. Siparia’s own Angelo Bissessarsingh, beloved local historian and winner of the 2017 OCM Bocas Nonfiction Prize, will be honoured alongside fellow South Trinidad literary luminaries Willi Chen, Al Ramsawack, and Rajandaye Ramkissoon-Chen. The panel discussion, led by writers who were inspired and influenced by this quartet, will focus on the importance of preserving creative legacies beyond death, and of building sustainable literary archives for public educational use.
Bocas Siparia’s Spoken Word Competition, drawing on the talents of secondary school-aged youth in Siparia and its environs, will form an essential component of the one-day festival. Participating youth will have the opportunity to workshop their pieces on the very day, in advance of their presentations, during a teaching session led by an award-winning spoken word artist and National Poetry Slam competitor.
Bocas Siparia presented by Methanex Trinidad, is free and open to the public.
Books and Brews at The Writers Centre
On Saturday 12 September, 3.30 – 4.30 pm, Emily Nagir, author of The Mystery Caller and It’s Wednesday—What Could Go Wrong!, will read from and discuss her work at an upcoming Books and Brews event, hosted at The Writers Centre, 14 Alcazar Street, St. Clair, by Paper Based Bookshop and Sleepy Cat Cafe. Nagir, who holds a BSc in Management Studies and Economics and a Master’s in Economics from the University of the West Indies, uses her writing to highlight the unexpectedness and joie de vivre of everyday life, in humorous and candid detail. Copies of her titles will be available for purchase from Paper Based Bookshop.
Books and Brews with Emily Nagir is free and open to the public. Pre-registration is encouraged via [email protected].
Caribbean Bestsellers
Paper Based Bookshop (Instagram: @paperbasedbookshop) shares its top-selling Caribbean titles for the past month:
1. Masqueraders, by Anthony Vahni Capildeo
2. Pleasantview, by Celeste Mohammed
3. Palmyra, by Karen Barrow
4. 101 Birds of Tobago’s Rainforest, by Faraaz Abdool
5. Smallie, by Eden McKenzie-Goddard
